The Oral-Written Textuality of Stichographic Poetry in the Dead Sea Scrolls

2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shem Miller
Keyword(s):  
Reference Point ◽  
Visual Representation ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
Spoken Text ◽  
Specific Performance ◽  
Performance Events ◽  
Social Uses

Textuality in antiquity differs significantly from that of modern Western culture in which the text exists as a fixed, idealized abstraction. In antiquity reading was speaking, and stichography is a visual representation of this interface between speech and writing. Stichography’s spatialization displays scribes’ perception of the spoken text including the concomitants of oral performance. Stichography also reflects scribes’ attentiveness to the readership’s experience with the performed or inscribed text. Scribes interacted with compositions as authors, adapting them according to the exigencies of specific performance events. As a result, the transmission of a specific written layout can supersede parallelismus membrorum; nevertheless, parallelism is a constitutive device in the majority of stichographic texts. The demarcation of sense units elicits two symbiotic social uses, both of which are also implied by the content of the canon. Stichographic texts provide a formatted reference point that is styled to facilitate oral performance and pedagogy.

“Sectual” Performance in Rule Texts

2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-38 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shem Miller
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Oral Performance ◽  
Local Chapter ◽  
The Dead

Abstract In this article, I examine descriptions of community meetings in Rule Texts to outline the content, authority, and functions of membership’s oral performance in the sectarian movement associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls. In particular, I explore portrayals of oral performance during local chapter meetings (1QS 6:1b–7a), nightly study sessions (1QS 6:7b–8a), general membership meetings (1QS 6:8b–13a; CD 14:3b–12a), covenant renewal ceremonies (1QS 1:24–26; CD 20:27–30), admission procedures (1QS 5:7c–9a, 6:13b–23; CD 15:5b–10a), and a meeting of Israel in the last days (1QSa 1:1–6a). Overall, I argue that oral performance consistently played a vital role in members’ lives, whenever and wherever they lived.

THE BALANCE OF PROBABILITY: STATISTICS AND THE DIACHRONIC STUDY OF ANCIENT HEBREW

2017 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 927-960
Author(s):  
Jarod Jacobs
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Biblical Hebrew ◽  
Large Datasets ◽  
Dual Function ◽  
Statistical Tools ◽  
Masoretic Text ◽  
Linguistic Research ◽  
Recent Debate ◽  
Diachronic Study

In this article, I discuss three statistical tools that have proven pivotal in linguistic research, particularly those studies that seek to evaluate large datasets. These tools are the Gaussian Curve, significance tests, and hierarchical clustering. I present a brief description of these tools and their general uses. Then, I apply them to an analysis of the variations between the “biblical” DSS and our other witnesses, focusing upon variations involving particles. Finally, I engage the recent debate surrounding the diachronic study of Biblical Hebrew. This article serves a dual function. First, it presents statistical tools that are useful for many linguistic studies. Second, it develops an analysis of the he-locale, as it is used in the “biblical” Dead Sea Scrolls, Masoretic Text, and Samaritan Pentateuch. Through that analysis, this article highlights the value of inferential statistical tools as we attempt to better understand the Hebrew of our ancient witnesses.

An Altar in the Desert?

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-135
Author(s):  
Alison Schofield
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
Spatial Theory ◽  
Conceptual Spaces ◽  
Spatial Practices ◽  
Damascus Document ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Community Rule ◽  
Rule Out

Jodi Magness’ proposal that an altar existed at Qumran leaves some unanswered questions; nevertheless, her conclusions are worthy of consideration. This study examines her claim that the residents at Qumran had an altar, modeled off of the Wilderness Tabernacle, through the lens of critical spatial theory. The conceptual spaces of some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, such as The Damascus Document and The Community Rule, as well as the spatial practices of the site of Qumran do not rule out – and even support – the idea that Qumran itself was highly delimited and therefore its spaces hierarchized in such a way that it could have supported a central cultic site.

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible

Canon&Culture ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 321-332
Author(s):  
Peter Flint
Keyword(s):  
Dead Sea Scrolls ◽  
Dead Sea ◽  
The Bible ◽  
The Dead
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